Gideon's three hundred

The angel finds Gideon threshing wheat in a winepress — hiding, in other words — and greets him as mighty man of valour, which is either a joke or a prophecy. Gideon's reply is a complaint: if the LORD is with us, why has all this happened to us? He asks for a sign, then another, then lays out a fleece twice, and God patiently gives him every one. Then thirty-two thousand men turn up to fight, and God says there are too many — because a victory that size would be claimed by Israel rather than credited to God. Twenty-two thousand are sent home for fear, then all but three hundred for the way they drink. Three hundred men with trumpets and jars surround a valley of enemies at night, and the enemy destroys itself in the dark.